Customer Reviews

OCP Oracle Database 11g : New Features for Administrators Exam Guide (Exam 1Z0-050) (Osborne ORACLE Press Series)

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I concede that writing a technical book which is 100% complete and accurate is virtually impossible. However, that does not detract from the author's and technical reviewer's responsibility to strive for that level of perfection. Especially for an exam guide.

I have been taking the OCP DBA exams since Oracle7 and have bought an exam guide every time to help me with my studies. This book is by far the worst one I have ever used due to its missing content, errors and confused explanations. And I'm barely a third of the way through. Sounds harsh? Here are some examples:

One page 5, it states the default ADR directory is of the form $ORACLE_BASE. WRONG!
It's $ORACLE_BASE/diag. This error is repeated several more times in the book.

Also on page 5, it gives an example of the location for trace files for a database called orcl2 with an instance name of orcl2. The example given is /u01/app/oracle/diag/rdbms/orcl2/orcl2. That's fine, but it doesn't explain if the first orcl2 is the database name or the instance name.

On page 11, it defines an init parameter called DDL_TIME_LOCKOUT. WRONG!
It's actually called DDL_LOCK_TIMEOUT.

On page 15, point #7 mentions you are offered the choice of listeners for the new database you're creating using the DBCA. That's true only if there are some listeners already configured which use that ORACLE_HOME. If there aren't, which is more likely if you've just installed 11g and are creating an 11g database for the first time, you get a warning message. This message tells you there are no listeners and that you'll need to configure one using Netca in a separate session before you can continue (assuming you want to configure Database Control for your new database). Thus point #7 is incomplete.

On page 17, it defines some profile resources for passwords, including PASSWORD_REUSE_MAX and PASSWORD_REUSE_TIME. The definitions for these two are the wrong way around.

That's 5 examples in the first 17 pages! Another reviewer mentioned the author's thanks given to April Wells for her "expert technical vetting" which allowed the author to "avoid errors and improve the quality of the presentation". The technical vetting either wasn't done at all or was done in such a hurry that many, many errors, omissions and confused explanations got as far as the publisher. That is wholly unacceptable and in my view Oracle Press should withdraw this edition of the book immediately. What makes it worse is the author, Sam Alapati, is the co-author of the Oracle Database 11g New Features for DBAs and Developers book published by Apress. I'm finding the things which are wrong in this exam guide are also wrong in the other book. Unbelievable!

My advice is to avoid this book altogether. If you have to verify virtually everything you read with Oracle's own documentation, you may as well just read Oracle's documentation. It'll save you time and money. You'll also benefit from the knowledge that what you're reading has actually been proof read by someone with the necessary amount of time and prerequisite level of competence.

I shall be writing to Oracle Press to demand a refund of my purchase price and a heavy discount or free copy of the second edition. We'll see how seriously they take their customers views and how well they stand behind their publications.

UPDATE 12/30/09.
Well, the 11g OCP upgrade book published by Sybex never materialized, which makes this book still the only one available for studying for exam 1Z0-050. Predictably, Oracle Press ignored my complaints and has still not issued a corrected second edition. However, someone has put up an errata web page. If you Google "errata oracle 11g new features sam alapati" you'll find it. I am referenced as having submitted errata which I did NOT! The errata web page goes some way towards correcting the obvious errors, but does not address the incomplete or confusing explanations. Use with caution. I passed exam 1Z0-050 back in May and did so using Oracle's software and documentation along with "Oracle Database 11g The Complete Reference" by Kevin Loney (it's not a complete reference, trust me) and the Student Guide from Oracle University's "Oracle Database 11g: New Features for Administrators" course (which also had a ton of errors). Hope that helps.

I cannot believe the author, as an experienced Oracle DBA, provided the following command (here only one bad example from huge other mistakes)to run a pl/sql function!

Chapter 4, page 233.
Using the EVOLVE_SQL_PLAN_BASELINE Function
SQL>exec dbms_spm.evolve_sql_plan_baseline(sql_handle=>'123456789999');

The Correct Command should be:
SET SERVEROUTPUT ON
SET LONG 10000
DECLARE
report clob;
BEGIN
report := DBMS_SPM.EVOLVE_SQL_PLAN_BASELINE(
sql_handle => '123456789999');

DBMS_OUTPUT.PUT_LINE(report);
END;
/

The other simple misleading errors are the default value of the new parameters. When I read this book, I have to compare the related contents with Oracle manuals for 11g.

This book should be called back!

Unfortunately, the book contains an incredible amount of errors - both typing and meaningful: different paragraphs conflict with each other, questions conflict with material in chapters, etc ...
Previous "exam cram" books contained many mistakes, but definitely not as much as this one ...

So many have said it, but after using or trying to use this book myself, I have to concede, this is by far the worst technical book I have ever, ever read. It is absolutely loaded with mistakes. Unfortunately if you plan to upgrade then this is the only book out there to use at the moment, so if you decide to buy it you'll need to verify absolutely everything against the Oracle documentation and a 11gR1 database . This in itself might not be a bad thing, but if you're pressed for time it can be very frustrating... and who wants to pay top dollar for a book full of mistakes!

Further to this the author struggles to explain complicated subject matter and I had to refer to Oracle's documentation time and again to clarify concepts.

This proofed to be extremely frustrating. I will not buy a book from this author again.

Ps. The errata only covers a small set of mistakes and still has mistakes in it!

I had read this authors (Sam Alapati) new features guide on Oracle 10g, and it had helped me a great deal with my OCP certification.
The 11g new features guide on the other hand falls short on expectations. As some previous reviewers have stated, the book can be best described as inaccurate. I was lucky to have taken the 11g new features class shortly after, where I was able to validate some of the inaccuracies in the book.

If you don't feel like scouring through the volumes of useless information in the Oracle documentation, this book can be a guide to keep you focused. That's all. You'll need to verify just about everything said in this book due to the ridiculous amount of inaccuracy. That being said, you still can learn quite a bit in the end with the additional verification work. By itself, this book is nearly useless though.

Make sure to check out this Errata link and print it out before reading. I didn't have this last year when I bought the book, but it hopefully reduces some of the mistakes you'll encounter. Also, Keep a red pen handy like I do! (The book needs bigger margins...)

[...]

PLEASE, McGraw-Hill, try to do some sort of proofreading in the future! This is a technical book, and needs to be ACCURATE! After I bought the Alapati 10g Exam guide, I would have bought from any other publisher if I had a choice! This book reinforces my opinion.

Looking at all the other reviews, it appears pretty unanimous-- the book is so FULL of errors it's almost unreadable!!! I'm on chapter 7 and it doesn't get any better. I read Sam's "Expert Oracle 9i Database Administration" a few years ago, and it had some errors, but was quite good overall. Somebody was asleep at the wheel on this one!

I had to read Sam Alapathi's earlier book to upgrade my Oracle Cert to 10g. This most recent book takes one to new levels of frustration. Not only is the book riddled with errors, he constantly repeats the same verbiage/points to fill up the pages to make it look like you are getting something for your money. Unfortunately not a lot of alternate books are available to cover the material so I am stuck. Can someone else write the 12g book next time who can actually compose sentences in English?

The book is organized fairly well. I haven't taken the test yet, but the content seems structured around what is on the test. However, I agree with the other reviews. Typos abound in this book. There are extra spaces and missing letters. The examples have extra semicolons, parens, and other mistakes. There are a couple of cases where whole paragraphs are repeated in different subsections. The summary sections often contradict the earlier sections of the chapter. Many of the chapter questions are poorly worded and the answers contradict earlier sections in the chapter.

In summary, the book is useful if you use the oracle documentation to validate its assertions. It is amazing that a book this poorly edited is released for publication. Unfortunately, I haven't seen any other source that is organized for the test as well as this book, so I marginally recommend it.

If you are like me I take readers opinions as their own opinion and not a concept of fact. I needed to upgrade my certification and other than going to OU for a class this was the only publicly made available book out in the market. The other readers warned me but I ignored. The code in the book does not work. Very little attention to providing details and explaining concepts. It has alot of PL/SQL procedures without reference or context to anything. I stopped reading after chapter 5. I have a good grasp of ASM, but just irritated with the way the author complicated the subject matter. Totally frustrating read. If you can get a copy of the Oracle University Student from torrent downloads I would advise you use them.